


A Melody of Madness

by ComparedFever



Series: Happy!Borne AU [1]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Some Plot, Some depictions of violence, What Have I Done, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 21:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10794873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComparedFever/pseuds/ComparedFever
Summary: The first in what will (unfortunately) be a series focusing on the many tragic Bloodborne NPCs, and how I sometimes wish things could have gone.Viola and Gascoigne and a young Yharnam girl, and what might have happened had the Hunter been a bit earlier that blood moon night.





	A Melody of Madness

**Author's Note:**

> That semi-Happy!AU where not everybody and their mothers die on the Night of the Hunt.
> 
> A/N: Two things. One, there are some depictions of violence in this story, though I personally don’t find them particularly graphic. If you could handle Bloodborne gameplay, then you should be able to handle this story just fine. That being said, you know yourself best, so just take note and read at your own discretion.
> 
> Second, I feel that, for the most part, there are no happy endings in Souls-Borne games. And, for the most part, I love that. I am self-aware enough to know that I am a sucker for angst and dark character storylines. Kill everyone. Make them die horrible and/or tragic deaths.
> 
> I love it all.
> 
> That being said, I also like myself some happy times, too. Can’t be alllllll doom and gloom. To make that fit into a primarily dark and tragic world, however, there does need to be some finagling. I have taken quite a few liberties with some story elements and characters. One example of this: is Gascoigne probably Irish? Going off his accent and name - which though french, is far more common in Ireland - then yes, probably. Do I like him better when he’s french? Yes, yes I do. SOooooo… yeah.
> 
> If this blatant disregard for canon offends you, then sorry, but this is probably not the story for you.
> 
> If you’re still here, awesome. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Nights in Yharnam are long.

The nights of a Hunt especially so.

Viola, born and raised amongst the cobbled streets and grey brick, knows this better than most. There are dark, terrible things awaiting her should she venture out on this night.

She knows this, but it will not stop her.

Not when her husband has gone and failed to return. Others might think Gascoigne dead or lost or, worst of all, a coward who abandoned his family. Gascoigne is none of those things. He is a doting father, a devoted husband, a pious man.

He is a Hunter.

Viola knows, too, what horrible fate awaits some of those who Hunt. Has witnessed it firsthand, in little flashes. Gascoigne will forget them, his wife and daughters. Will turn suddenly ill-tempered and foul-tongued. Will be weary and cautious and ferocious all at once. When he snarls at them, his teeth are too long and too sharp, his voice gravel and rock like nothing a human throat can emulate. Sometimes, his nails grow long and pointed, turning black. It has always been easy to pull him from these episodes, with a soft voice and gentle touch and, most importantly, the music box.

Things improved when Gascoigne finally left the Hunter life behind, urged by Henryk and Viola both. His episodes became few and far between. A distant memory. But then…

But then…

This accursed Yharnam Hunt came again. Worse than any Viola has seen before. Her husband, precious and gentle and caring Gascoigne, could not be deterred.

Viola waited for him. Waited and waited and waited. It felt like hours. Days, even. Until finally, Viola could wait no longer.

This is how she comes to find herself walking briskly through Yharnam’s streets, the sun not completely set for all that the city’s shadows stretch long and dark. Her palms are sweaty, her fingers shake. She clings tightly to the skirt of her dress, in part to comfort herself, in part to hold the long fabric up off the ground.

Her heart beats a staccato rhythm against her ribs, loud and disconcerting to her ears. Every breath is a struggle to pull air into lungs tight with discomfort, through a throat dry and swollen with fear.

Viola knows her husband well – creature of habit that he is – and it is easy to trace his steps across Central Yharnam. The large plaza by their house is a good place to start, but he isn’t there. She follows the winding back alleys and shadowed streets, careful to avoid the worst of the hunt.

On any other day, she might head straight to Oedon Chapel. Her husband always passes through the chapel, after all, to make his way into Cathedral Ward.

For some reason, on this night, she waits. And waits. And waits.

Something is holding her back – what, she knows not – but she listens to caution tingling down her spine and waits, however painful it might be. But then… she has already done so much waiting, this night, and she can wait no longer.

Viola inches her way past the array of kennels, filled with rabid hounds, past the two ogres meandering about the under the bridge, and then takes the elevator down, down, down.

The wood creaks and groans around her, pulley system protesting all the while. It touches the bottom with a dull thud that rattles her to the bone. She steps off and goes straight to the lever. It is horrible, what she is about to do. If there is someone above who might need the elevator – for an emergency or otherwise – they will be trapped.

Viola tries not to think of it as she pulls the emergency lock, sealing the contraption in place.

She leaves quickly before she can change her mind, stepping out into the night air and taking a deep breath. Turn right and take the ladder, and she will end up in the sewers. Left takes her over the bridge and to her destination. Bodily waste and death burn her nose.

Then, the scent of moonlight and shadows and something else, deep and rich and dark, underneath. Viola would know that particular smell anywhere.

A Hunter.

Viola prays, fervent, that it is her hunter. She turns, following the faint scent across the bridge. The trail of freshly killed beasts and creatures is a familiar sight. Any true Yharnamite would recognize the signs of a hunter at work. The trail leads her straight to Odeon Tomb. Viola rounds the next turn at a run.

Disappointment is a bitter, broken thing. It swells like a storm in her chest, rattles against her ribs.

It makes her angry.

The stranger turns to face her with a swish of his short cape, the faint click of his pistol being cocked. Viola recognizes the saw-toothed weapon in his other hand as similar to one Henryk favors. For some reason, this makes her angrier.

“Who are you?” She says. Demands.

The hunter lets his pistol fall limp at his side, pointed to the ground. “Forgive me,” he says, contrite.

Viola has no patience for pleasantries. “It doesn’t matter. I am searching for my husband. He is tall and wears bandages around his eyes. Have you seen him?”

His spine stands unerringly straight, shoulders squared and high. The coat he wears is drenched red and as she watches, a congealed glob drips from the edge of his short cape to splatter across the cobblestones. There is a layer of unmentionable filth on his boots and pants. Clearly, he took the long way through the sewers. His features are obscured by the jagged shadow of his hat. What little she might have been able to see is covered by a typical Hunter’s mask, wrapped tight around the lower half of his face.

“Well? Have you seen him?” Viola has never been able to control her tongue, quick to speak her mind and always heavy-handed with truth.

Her parents had bemoaned her ever finding a husband. Ironically, this same trait is, Gascoigne claims, what attracted him to her in the first place.

The Hunter shifts away, uneasy, and the thick shadows of the night recede enough for Viola to catch a hint of his features. The bridge of a sharp, straight nose. Two dark eyebrows, and underneath a pair of bizarrely mismatched eyes. The left a splash of blue so pale it brings to mind ice and snow, and the right umber brown, like warm wood and soothing earth.

“I am sorry, but no. I do have a question for you, however,” he knows the language well, but his accent his thick and pronounced, swollen in his vowels. He sounds far younger than Viola would have guessed. He hesitates, head cocked, before pulling something from the pouch at his waist.

“Does this belong to you?”

He extends his arm out to her, and resting in the palm of his hand is a very familiar music box. Viola gasps despite herself. “How…?”

She snatches the precious box away from him, cradles it close to her chest. Viola handles it with a care and tenderness anyone else might reserve for priceless jewelry or stones. Her mind races.

“How did you get this?”

The hunter tucks his pistol into his belt and takes a step forward. He is very careful to keep his weapon angled away from her, Viola notes. He says, “It was given to me by a little girl. Your daughter, I believe.”

Viola’s head snaps up. “My daughter? How? She should be inside!”

He holds his free hand up, palm out. Placating. “She is. I spoke to her through the window.”

“But she was safe?”

The Hunter nods. “Yes. Door locked and grate in place. I only realized she was there when she called out to me,” he adjusts his hat, at a momentary loss for words. “She… recognized my scent, she said.”

“She would,” Viola says, quiet, her mind far away.

She… had forgotten the music box. It seems impossible. Viola knows the danger her husband poses – to himself and the people around him. She knows.

Then how could she have possibly forgotten?

She doesn’t know how it happened, but she knows exactly what would have happened. It turns her blood to ice.

Viola says, “Thank you.”

The hunter gives her a stiff nod.

Viola takes another moment to ground herself. It is terrifying to think of what might have been, yes, but that will never happen now. Now she must focus on her husband. She is clinging to the music box so tightly, the small edges dig into her skin. She takes a deep, measured breath, then releases it and her death grip all at once.

“Are you alright?” The hunter peers down at her, the corners of his eyes crinkled into a frown.

“I will be,” Viola says, “As soon as I find my husband.”

She meets the hunter’s eyes with cold determination. He helped her daughter, perhaps he will help her.

He cocks his head again, thoughtful. After a long, agonizing moment, he says, “Very well.”

Viola turns and makes her way up the steps towards Odeon Tomb.

The hunter falls into step beside her, the click of his boots against the cobblestone a familiar, soothing pattern.

oOo

Mauro has not been in Yharnam long, for all that every slow, aching second feels like an hour. Every hour a despairing, timeless night. Even still, Mauro is beginning to understand the tragedy that defines this strange city - and her stranger people.

That peculiar Yharnam madness, indeed.

It is the faint, melancholic tunes warbling into the night that snag Mauro’s attention. It draws his gaze away from the dead ogre at his feet, and up, up, up a nearby ladder. At the top, Mauro can just detect the glow of incense.

Curiosity awoken, he begins to climb.

As he crests the top, the music ends abruptly, as if someone has snapped a lid on the sound.

“Who… are you?” The voice of a little girl calls.

The window is well lit, incense burning sickly red in the lantern. For a moment, Mauro entertains the idea of ignoring the girl and continuing on his way. Then he thinks of Gilbert, who offered all the help and advice that he could to a stranger, and approaches the window.

“Good evening, miss.” He gives no name, and does not ask for one.

“I don’t know your voice, but I know that smell,” the girl says. She can be no older than ten. “Are you a hunter?”

Are you a hunter? That word again.

Mauro looks down at himself, drenched in blood and sewage and other unmentionable filth, a weapon in each hand. Is this a hunter? He isn’t sure, but if nothing else this is apparently a common hunter smell.

Joy.

“Yes,” he says, and wonders how long it will take to regret it.

“Then, please, will you look for my mum?” Two small hands press earnestly against the glass, a pair of large blue eyes just peeking over the lip of the window seal. Atop her head is a crown of pretty golden curls. “Daddy never came back from the hunt, and she went to find him, but now she’s gone, too. I’m all alone… and scared…”

Mauro wants to refuse. He has enough to deal with, in search of Paleblood and trying to survive on streets overrun with all manner of beasts. And this little girl expects her mother to be alive after venturing out into a nightmare?

No, this would be pointless.

A fool’s errand.

Mauro says, “Yes.”

Those blue eyes light up with joy. “Really? Oh, thank you! My m-mum wears a red jeweled broach. It’s so big and… and beautiful. You won’t miss it.”

“Then I shall keep an eye out,” Mauro turns away, already going over the rough map of the area in his head.

He has been up, down, and across nearly every street and back alley Central Yharnam has to offer, Mauro would imagine. It seems highly unlikely he would have missed the woman. Then… somewhere he hasn’t yet been. Gilbert claimed the aqueducts would lead him straight to Cathedral Ward, after all, so perhaps this other entrance is common knowledge.

Decided, Mauro begins for the ladder, mentally steeling himself against the coming stench and hordes of water-logged beasts, when the little girl calls out to him again. “Oh, I mustn’t forget. If you find my mum, give her this music box.”

The window opens with a scrape of wood, and a guileless little arm extends into the night. Mauro lurches back to the window, irrationally nervous something will come along and take a bite of the delicate limb. He takes the box quickly but with care, and pointedly pushes the arm back behind the safety of the grate.

The girl hardly seems to recognize her actions.

She says, earnest, “It plays one of daddy’s favorite songs. And when daddy forgets us, we play it for him so he remembers,” she chuckles, a poor, strained sound, “mum’s so silly running off without it.”

“I will do my best to find them,” Mauro says.

He makes no promise.

This time when he turns away, the little girl lets him go.

He is only a few steps from the window, standing at the cusp of the ladder, when that same curiosity gets the best of him.

Mauro holds the music box up to light and examines it with a critical eye. Made of delicate wood, inlaid with a faded silver trim, it fits easily in Mauro’s large hand. He can feel faint grooves in the wood that tell a story of much love and attention.

It is an old music box, yes, but well – very well – cared for.

Mauro is half-tempted to open it, to hear again this song that can apparently bring a man back from the brink of madness, but finally restrains himself. It is not his song to hear.

He stows the box in the pouch at his side and makes his way into the night.

Down the ladder, through the sewer, past the monstrous boar, across the bridge… all crawling with beasts. Every new enemy makes the little bubble of hope inside Mauro’s chest grow dimmer. For a person to be running about on a night like this, presumably with no weapons and no means to defend themselves.

Mauro’s frown deepens.

He half-expects to see a body around every corner, red broach matching the little girl’s description clutched in lifeless hands.

There are plenty of bodies, but the broach remains nowhere to be found.

Mauro walks slowly up the next flight of stairs, pausing as a pair of Wolfmen come into view. He waits for them to turn and see him, as they often do, but whatever it is that entraps their attention, their interest doesn’t seem to be waning. Mauro means to walk past them.

The more confrontation avoided the better. And yet…

And yet…

It is easy to approach them unnoticed. The click of his boot heels against the ground forever overlooked by the beasts. Presumably, they no longer have the sense to recognize the noise for what it is. Once within arm’s reach, Mauro settles into a wider stance. He has already cut through countless foes this night, and the muscles of his arm groan in protest as he hefts his saw-toothed weapon into the air.

Despite that, his swing is smooth and unyielding, serrated edge cutting through skin and muscle and bone with a red, wet sound. Blood sprays across his face, his neck, his chest, warm and thick and metallic even through a mask and layers of leather.

The afflicted man collapses to his knee with a wretched, inhuman wail. Mauro ignores the burning pain of his hand morphing into ghastly claws and finishes the task. Somewhere deep in his soul, a voice cries out with relish as he rends the beast-man open from shoulder to hip, shattering bone with ease. It is as quick a death as Mauro can make it.

The only thing he has to offer.

Recovered from his surprise, the other Wolfman lunges with his makeshift spear, but it is child’s play to slide past and slash the beast from the side. Mauro was not so surefooted when this night began, but pain is a merciless teacher, and there is nothing quite like the feeling of metal piercing flesh to drive man to new heights.

Another haphazard jab. Another easy dodge.

It is only seconds before an opening presents itself, the beast throwing his full weight into a mindless charge and leaving himself wide open. Mauro punishes the move with a flurry of powerful strikes, flaying skin and muscle to the bone.

One last shrill cry, and then it is over.

Mauro stands there for a moment, up to his ankles in blood and innards and gore, and catches his breath. A short skirmish this time, instead of a battle, but exhausting all the same.  
In that dark place of his soul, the vile voice howls.

Not a moment later, a set of new footsteps reach his ears, tapping rapidly against the pavement. Mauro cocks his pistol with a sigh and turns to face his new foe.

He comes face-to-face with a woman instead. A woman with golden curls and very familiar blue eyes.

There is a moment of utter stillness, and then her face twists into a fierce scowl.

“Who are you?” She demands.

Ah, Mauro thinks, I suppose I’ve found her.

oOo

Viola passes beneath the entry arch into Oedon Tomb, and she knows immediately her worst fears have come to pass.

Gascoigne stands with his back to them, unseeing eyes angled up towards the night sky. His shoulders are hunched in a way entirely unlike his usual self, and his large Hunter’s Axe hangs loosely in his fingers. It is not quite the posture of the countless Yharnamites wandering the streets, lost to the blood and the beast, but it is close enough to turn Viola’s blood to ice.

The hunter cocks his head in that way of his. At this angle, Viola can clearly see his mismatched eyes, fixed intently on the axe. He says, “Your husband, yes?”

“Yes,” Viola’s voice is laden with emotion. She clears her throat. “Yes,” she says again, stronger.

The hunter turns his odd gaze to her. Viola meets it unflinching. He yields to her then, when Viola least expects it. “As you will,” he waves her forward with a nod. “I follow your direction.”

Viola swallows the lump of nervous fear building in her throat. This is not the time, nor the place. Later, when she is at home with her husband and daughters in her arms, Viola will let herself think about this night and quiver. But not now. Not yet.

She moves forward, music box in hand, holds it almost as a shield.

The hunter is a step behind her. She pretends not to hear the click of his pistol being cocked. She pretends it is not a comfort.

“Gascoigne,” she calls, quiet.

He does not react.

“Gascoigne.”

Then, hope. Gascoigne wavers back and forth, shakes his head. He still recognizes his name, somewhere inside. More than Viola expected. Perhaps the music box will not be needed after all.

“Yes, Gascoigne,” she needs to be careful, now. This small sense of self can be lost far too easily. “It is me. Viola.”

Simple, easy things are best. People or places. Anything beyond that could confuse Gascoigne. Confusion leads to fear. Fear leads to that frightening, beastly rage.

Gascoigne jerks at the sound of her name, turns his head this way and that. Looking for her. As much as it pains her, Viola keeps her distance for now. “I am here, Gascoigne,” she says, holds the music box at the ready. “I am here. But I need you to be here with me.”

This makes her husband growl, sudden. Viola shushes him gently. He quiets with a strange, canine huff. After a moment, he drifts around to face her. “Viola?” He says.

It is not a trick, exactly, but neither is it true recognition. In this state, Gascoigne reacts to most things instinctively. The man is in there, somewhere, but Viola knows the man is not in control, no matter how it seems. She has made that mistake before.

“There are beasts all over the shop,” Gascoigne says, quiet but eager.

Speech. Thought. He is responding to Viola’s words so well. She says, “I know, but your part is done. Your hunt is finished.”

Gascoigne’s lips curl into a snarl. “No,” he bellows, deep and angry and nearly inhuman.

There it is. “Yes,” Viola says.

Gascoigne lunges at her with a fierce shout, axe raised high, but Viola is ready. She snaps the music box open, quick, and that familiar, haunting melody echoes into the night.

Then, disaster. Gascoigne doesn’t stop. He always has, before. If words or the presence of loved ones are not enough, the music box is. Always.

Gascoigne doesn’t stop.

Viola can see the axe coming towards her, slower than time, faster than she can react. She can’t even open her mouth to scream.

In the end, she doesn’t have to.

A shot rings out into the night, searing and explosive until the pressure bursts in her ears and there is nothing at all. She watches the soundless show as Gascoigne recoils from the blast, crashing to one knee. His mouth moves in what might be a scream. Viola can see the bloody hole in his jacket, high on his chest, where the bullet made contact.

The hunter steps smoothly in front of her, blocks her view with his broad shoulders, carefully plucks the music box from her hands. He grabs a hold of Viola’s wrist and pulls her along as he steps forward. Viola wavers with every step, ears ringing.

Gascoigne is regaining his equilibrium, Viola can see, but remains kneeling. The music box is still open, and as the melody presumably continues to play, Gascoigne sways towards the sound as if pulled by some invisible strings. Viola feels like she could weep.

“Gascoigne?” Her own voice is barely audible over the ringing, like some call from far, far away.

Finally - finally - it breaks.

Her husband shakes his head like a hound, and perhaps it clears the last of the blood cloud from his mind. Gascoigne straightens, raises a hand to his chest and finds the bullet wound. “What?” he says.

Viola throws herself forward with a shout. The hunter moves to stop her, tries to pull her back by the wrist, but she slips his grip with ease. Gascoigne catches her weight with a groan Viola feels more than hears, but he doesn’t flinch away. Pulls her closer as she begins to sob, deep, heaving, ugly, into his shoulder.

There are no words for the relief she feels. Nothing to do but revel in it.

They linger in the graveyard too long, perhaps, but Viola cannot bring herself to care. She clings to her husband with everything she has. The man will have bruises. Gascoigne does not complain. He merely holds her in return. Wrapped in his massive, but gentle - always gentle - arms, Viola is enveloped in that sense of safety and comfort she can get nowhere else.

To think, she could have lost this. A fresh wave of tears prickle at her eyes. Gascoigne nuzzles into her neck, pressing a chaste kiss to the skin. “There, there,” he says, voice rough but no less tender.

Then he croons to her in his mother tongue, and the smooth roll of the words banishes the last of the tension from her shoulders.

She emerges from his shoulder with a watery hiccup. Gascoigne chuckles, the sound hitting harsh in his throat and rumbling deep in his chest, and wipes her face with his thumbs. The intimate scrape of his callouses against her cheeks nearly brings Viola to tears again.

“I thought that-,” she chokes on her words. “I was afraid,” she manages to say. To admit.

A terrible secret for a terrible night.

“I know,” Gascoigne says, and he does know, without Viola having to explain. “I’m sorry.”

They cling to each other ever tighter.

oOo

Mauro keeps his eyes carefully averted from the couple on the ground.

He is as much a stranger to them as they are to him, after all, and the mere idea of watching such an emotional reunion between man and wife makes Mauro uncomfortable. Like some kind of voyeur. He would give them some peace, if only they weren’t in a city with beasts lurking around every corner.

As it is, lingering in one spot for so long sets Mauro’s teeth on edge and his skin to crawling.

He waits as long as his nerves will allow before, “Apologies,” he says, watches the man’s head snap in his direction with nearly frightening reflexes. “But perhaps you might continue this later.”

The woman tenses, sudden, and whirls to face Mauro with wide eyes, as if she’d forgotten he had been standing there all along. She recovers with admirable speed. “Of course,” she says, climbs shakily to her feet.

Her husband steadies her easily with one hand, then rises up to his full height. Up, and up, and up.

Mauro blinks.

He hadn’t thought the man quite so large, before, with madness stooping his powerful frame to a shadow of itself. Mauro is not small, despite the ravages of an illness he no longer remembers, but this man certainly makes him feel that way.

Disconcerted, Mauro retreats a step before he can stop himself.

Thankfully, the couple does not seem to notice.

"We have to hurry,” the woman says, clings to her husband’s hand. “I’ve left our daughters alone for too long. Who knows what might have happened.” 

Her husband says, “They are smart girls, Viola. They will be alright.”

 _Viola_.

Yes, that is her name. And if Mauro is remembering correctly, then her husband is Gascoigne.

Viola and Gascoigne.

It suits them.

Mauro steps forward, still uncomfortable, and holds out the music box. It is small thing, but feels unbearably heavy in his palm. Mauro has seen the power of it, now, and the importance. It is precious, and like most precious things, its weight is not decided by the physical but by the mind.

Mauro’s mind has decided that this is not a weight he wishes to bear.

Viola takes the music box with the same care and tenderness as before, cradles the delicate wooden frame. She looks up at Mauro with watery blue eyes. It is very different from the woman of ice and steel Mauro first met.

“Thank you,” she says.

Mauro is not sure how to respond. He nods.

Gascoigne steps forward to stand by his wife. “I take it you are the one who shot me.” It is not a question.

“I- yes.” Mauro’s hands suddenly feel clammy.

“Thank you,” Gascoigne says, wraps his arms around Viola and pulls her tight to his side. “Thank you.”

His voice is rough, swollen with emotion. Mauro moves to nod, again, but stops himself. Gascoigne is standing tall and unafraid, facing Mauro head-on, but his face is angled just a little off. If the man could see, Mauro thinks, eyeing the thick wrappings around Gascoigne’s eyes, then perhaps he would not be so intimidating.

Mauro says, “You are welcome.”

Gascoigne and Viola turn away from him then, and begin a slow walk back towards Central Yharnam. Mauro watches them go, discomfited and glad in equal measure.

He is a stranger to them. They are strangers to him.

He has done his part; found a girl’s mother, delivered a precious music box, and found a lost – in more ways than one – husband. There is nothing more Mauro can do for this small family.

He has already given them so much of his time.

He owes them nothing.

“Is there-,” He catches himself, embarrassed, but Viola and Gascoigne have already turned to face him.

Viola says, “Yes?”

Mauro straightens his shoulders and strides forward to stand beside them, exuding a confidence he does not quite feel. “Perhaps I might escort you home,” he says, stiff, not looking in their direction. “It would put my mind at ease.”

There is a moment of silence, stretching nearly an eternity to Mauro’s nervous ears.

“Thank you,” Viola says, grasps Mauro’s hand with one of her own. Her grip is stronger than he expects. “You are very kind.”

Something small and forgotten inside Mauro shivers, warmed to the very core by her words.

“Let us hurry,” Mauro says in way of answer, pulls his hand away and moves forward to lead, the better not to look at them.

Gascoigne says, “Fear not, young man. The night is long. You will be returned to your hunt soon enough.”

Mauro thinks of the things he has already seen this frightening night, mad and beastly and savage, and thinks of Gascoigne, a supposed hunter of these beasts who falls victim to that same madness, and shivers.

“Yes.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my friend who both encouraged and proofread this disaster (you know who you are, my guy), and sat through hours of me playing this game and nerding out on the lore. This would not have happened without you.
> 
> (I don't know if that should make you proud or... yeah.)


End file.
